This blog is a great opportunity to share ideas about ways to
transform schooling as we know it, to help all students realise their
talents, passions and dreams. Be great to hear from anyone out there! Feel free to add a comment to Bruce's Blog and enter e-mail to receive postings

“Why
is the sky blue? Who invented the toilet? Why do zebras have stripes? As any
parent of a preschool- or elementary school–age child can
attest, children are born with a natural sense of curiosity. It is this innate
sense of wonder that will lead and support our students' lifelong journeys of
discovery and learning. As educators, we have a moral obligation to not only
allow for our students' inquisitiveness, but to also foster and support this
powerful, often untapped potential.”

“Ask
adults about maths and they’ll often say: “I
was never very good at maths at school”. How can we
stop young children growing up today saying the same thing. One way to develop
ownership is to take children on a “maths walk”,
opening their eyes up to the world around them. It’s like a treasure hunt, with the treasures hidden all around us
waiting to be observed.”

This advice is offered so that each student can
continue to benefit from Wiggins' teachings and wisdom.

“While
Grant is no longer with us, his spirit and ideas live on. Indeed, we can honor
and celebrate his life’s work by acting on
the sage advice that he offered to teachers over the years. As we prepare to
meet our new students, let us consider three of Grant’s sensible and salient lessons for teachers.”

“One
of a teacher's most important practices is designing and posing questions.
Knowing that questions are the gateway into students' thinking, masterful
teachers don't just ask a lot of questions; they purposefully design and pose
questions that are appropriate for each learning goal—questions
that will bring about the specific kinds of student learning they are aiming
for.”

“The
realities of standardized tests and increasingly structured, if not
synchronized, curriculum

continue to build classroom stress levels. Neuroimaging
research reveals the disturbances in the brain's learning circuits and
neurotransmitters that accompany stressful learning environments. The
neuroscientific research about learning has revealed the negative impact of
stress and anxiety and the qualitative improvement of the brain circuitry
involved in memory and executive function that accompanies positive motivation
and engagement.”

Blended learning –many schools are moving into personalised
blended learning to move out of a factory one size fits all model.

“A
foundation-funded experiment is testing whether“blended
learning”
can personalize instruction in eight Oakland schools.
Blended learning combines brick-and-mortar schooling with online education “with
some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace” of
learning, according to the Clayton Christensen Institute definition of the
term.”

Remember B.F. Skinner’s teaching machine? Are similar claims being made for today’s technology?

“By
repeatedly rotating a little wheel on the machine’s side, each child was presented with a question and its answer, then
another question and its answer and so on. The feedback was instant. Each child
could move at their own pace. Learning was fun instead of hard work. It was
obvious to Skinner that this technology was going to change the face of
education forever. Except it didn’t.”

“When
it comes to creativity, one of our biggest concerns is usually how we can be
more creative, or how to come up with better ideas. Research in this area is
all over the place, but I’ve gathered some of
the most practical studies out there to help you utilize specific techniques
that can boost your creativity.

All of these studies are useful for everyday creativity in daily
life, so try a few out for yourself and see which ones work best for you.”

It is not only what school think is worth
knowing –shame teachers don’t understand this

“Whether
we mean to or not, we constantly reinforce the message that only the stuff kids
are taught in school counts as serious learning. Extracurriculars are fine, but
what really counts is in their textbooks and homework.We send them to school
precisely because we believe that’s where they’ll be taught the most important subjects. We grade them on those
things, and in many ways we measure their worth (at least while they’re in school) by how well they do on tests and school assignments.”

What’s often missing in many classrooms are the ‘voices’ and personal creativity of the students.

The point of the creative process is for
each student to produce a piece of work (research, poetry, art or dance) that
represents the best a learner can do; a piece of work or performance to be
proud of. We are what we create to a degree.To many teachers do not understand
that to develop student creativity theyneed to
do 'fewer things well' to allow their students to 'dig deeply' into any
experience and then to express what they discover with individual creativity.

The only way we will get a real change in
the basic script of our society is for central government to start listening to
the voices of the wider community and, in education in particular, to the
voices of teachers, students and their parents.

“Students who are taught to observe the intimate world of their
immediate environment not only see more, and have more to wonder and talk about
but, in the process, develop a wider vocabulary and ask more questions. From
this wealth of sensory experiences arises the source for talking, drawing and
early writing.”

Along with John Holt I now have to admit
that, after decades of encouraging school transformation, I have also come to
Holt's view about the impossibility of really transforming our antiquated
education system.

And it is not that the ‘frightening messages’ are new as
anyone who reads the posting of ex
senior inspector of schools Kelvin Smythe will know. Kelvin warned us in the
1980s of the consequences of ‘Tomorrows
Schools’ reforms of self-managing,
competitive schools, but no one listened ,including myself, at the time! A man
before his time but at least he hasn’t given up the fight. He is now more
relevant than ever.

A recent comment to one of his posting, said in respect to
the NZEI succumbing to the Government’s wishes over Community of Schools (a
good idea abused by the Governments’ standardisation ideology):

‘Don’t comply. Stand
firm…..resolution from our leaders will not happen while teachers remain
apathetic and only think in the short term about their back pocket rather than
the long term about the NZ education system, their profession and what is truly
best for our students’.

Our ‘so-called’ self-managing schools are suffering from
what one writer calls ‘a corrosion of character’. They were promised the opportunity to develop
flexible schools but find that their success depends on the approval of the
Education Review Office. This dilemma,
to gain approval by ERO and to stay true to their educational beliefs, is made
worse because ERO approval is a shifting target. Only those with real character
(and courage) can stay true. And then there is the problem of their school’s
reputation and destructive interschool competition; far easier to comply – to
go along to get along.

Denise Torrey

Back to the NZPPF Magazine’s warnings.

From the ‘President’s pen page’ it couldn’t be clearer. Denise
Torrey summed up the messages from the internationally respected keynote speakers.

‘Professor Meg Maguire (UK) demonstrated the harsh reality
of the global education reforms (GERM) which in a nutshell, she said,’ can be
summed up as the decimation of the public education system in the UK’.

Meg Maquire spoke about how assessment and so called
‘performance’ are the all-consuming focuses in the UK. ‘Children’ she said, ‘face more of the same,
year after year: assessment preparations, then assessment, then repeat’. School leadership is a statistical exercise
in crunching data and preparing children for the next test. And, she said, ‘if
schools are underperforming they are closed down by the equivalence of ERO (OFSTED)
and replaced by private academies’ (charter schools).

Keynote speaker American educator Diane Ravitch outlined the
steps politicians use to introduce their agenda- ones that will be recognised by
New Zealand educators.

First they manufacture the ‘crisis’ ‘in New Zealand the
‘one in five failing’ and ...’students
are leaving school and can’t read, write or do maths’. Once the crisis gets
public support then in comes the political solution.

1 in 5 failing = 1 in 5 in poverty! Any connection?

The ‘crisis’ is framed as teachers not doing their job
properly, teachers unions protecting them, not being accountable and not having
proper standards. Then in come the standards in literacy and numeracy and
suddenly we have a standardised measure of a schools ‘performance’.

Next in
line, warns Denise, are privatised charter schools to solve the problem – and
to make a profit. Denise brought up the issue of the TTPA (Trans Pacific
Partnership Agreement) which she says would allow foreign corporations to
establish charter schools and, if so, to override the decisions of
democratically elected Governments.

In this scenario schools are to blame – no mention of
poverty being an issue.

Totally compliant

And to make things worse schools have not expressed a
creative teaching alternative to such developments. Too busy complying to fight
for educationally inspired Communities of Schools and the NZEI, it seems, has lost an opportunity toshare the creative ideas of teachers and instead has opened the way for greater
compliance and standardisation; a sell out with dire consequences.

Denise informed the meeting
that a business world survey found that the top five skills required for job
hunters are: problem solving, team work, communication, critical thinking and
creativity.

And Denise reminded attendees there are the views of theimportance of a creative education by such educational experts as Sir KenRobinson. ‘Unless we reach an agreed sense of the purpose of education’, Denise
concluded, ‘we will continue to be overwhelmed and bewildered by myriad policy
initiatives none of which emanate from a common purpose.

ofEducation, was ‘a document to be proud of’.
He concluded by saying that in a rapidly changing world only the
flexible, creative and innovative will succeed’. He could’ve also be referring
to schools themselves!

Professor Meg Maquire (Kings College London) continued the
message with frightening clarity 'mirroring the concerns], that Liz Hawes writes,
‘ that New Zealand teachers have expressed since the
introduction of national standards, public achievement information and league
tables; fears that these will lead to obsession with assessment
data, threats of school closure for under performance and chains of charter
schools’.

In England Meg said, ‘we haven’t got a system left. Teachers
are the objects of policy, not the agents. These are deforms not reforms’,
resulting in ‘intolerable stress levels’.

‘Don’t go down this path,’ she concluded.

Professor Alma Harris (Head of Educational Leadership,
London) asked attendees to rethink what high performance means and to ‘press
the pause on the Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA), which
is distorting education’.Sir Ken Robinsoncalls then as reliable as the

The leaning tower of PISA

Eurovision Song contest is for defining singing quality! What is wrong is that
PISA testing takes no account for context and that the real problem with PISA
is when the measures become the target’. And they only measure what they
measure! ‘The trouble with targets’, one business philosopher wrote,’ that it
is not the ones you hit that count it is the ones you miss because you weren’t looking.

‘What drags down performance in the United
States is poverty, more than any other factor. But politicians and power
brokers don’t want to talk about poverty they want to talk about reform.’

A further belief is that ‘if you standardise
testing, and the curriculum and everyone has common testing them all children
will be successful and all poverty will disappear And, with regard to charter
schools, ‘you have no unions, no tenure and no security’. ‘This is education
for profit based on ideas

that teachers are motivated by incentives such as
performance pay’. Education in the US is becoming more corporatized and computers are being seen as a replacement
for teachers which, says Ravitch, ‘is
the ultimate in eliminating human relationships from education’ it is
all about schools calculating the ‘value add’ score based on literacy and
numeracy tests scores. And those who resist such reforms are labelled resisters
who just want to protect the status quo. Sound
familiar?

Liz Hawes concludes her summary by writing, ‘It is timely
that we continue to take on board the strong warning from the speakers from
both the UK and the USA that global reforms are dangerous and destructive and
should be resisted’.

Time it seems for educators to remember ‘they came to drain
the swamp’ and to set their sights on an educational vision that focuses

“A broad general education helps foster
critical thinking and creativity. Exposure to a variety of fields produces
synergy and cross fertilization. Yes, science and technology are crucial
components of this education, but so are English and philosophy. When unveiling
a new edition of the iPad, Steve Jobs explained that “it’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not
enough —that it’s technology married with liberal
arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the result that makes our
hearts sing.”’

Weapons
of maths destruction: are calculators killing our ability to work it out in ourhead?

It’s not the calculators that is the problem…

“Sadly, the potential for calculators
to transform school mathematics and enhance our facility with mental arithmetic
is not being achieved. We are not being provided with opportunities to solve
real and interesting mathematical problems in the most effective ways”

“Sassoon’s analysis of how we’re taught to hold pens makes a much
stronger case for the role of the ballpoint in the decline of cursive. She
explains that the type of pen grip taught in contemporary grade school is the
same grip that’s
been used for generations, long before everyone wrote with ballpoints. However,
writing with ballpoints and other modern pens requires that they be placed at a
greater, more upright angle to the paper—a position that’s generally uncomfortable with a
traditional pen hold.”

“The Reggio Emilia approach to early
childhood education places among the children an atelierista with two primary
responsibilities: to conduct deep observation of the patterns in each child’s growth and use these observations to
lead children into the process of the artist. Atelieristas often refer to this
process as the “aesthetic dimension,”full of desire for meaning, curiosity
and wonder.”

“Certain forms of technology can be
used to support progressive education, but meaningful (and truly personal)
learning never requires technology. Therefore, if an idea like personalization
is presented from the start as entailing software or a screen, we ought to be
extremely skeptical about who really benefits”

“How
do we as teachers get our students to define their own driving questions? One
way is by pairing design thinking with project-based learning. If you want
students to develop leadership, confidence, and solid core content knowledge,
then this is a strategy that works “learning
miracles.”Students crave assignments that are relevant to them. That’s why project-based learning is the best way to get students to take
control of their learning. Here are some keys to getting the most out of
project-based learning.”

New York Times review of Tony Wagner’s excellent bookis well worth a read

Tony Wagner

‘“Most
Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era,” by
Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith — argues that
the only way to ensure any kind of future security for our children is to
totally upend the education system and rethink what school is for.Many of the
disruptions the authors suggest — an
interdisciplinary approach; hands-on, project-based learning; student-directed
curriculums —
are already in place in some of the country’s best schools. Less convincing is the assumption that undergirds
this whole tract: that every person can — or should — be
molded into an entrepreneur.’

“A
mountain of evidence indicates that teachers have been painfully slow to
transform the ways they teach, despite that massive influx of new technology
into their classrooms. The student-centered, hands-on, personalized instruction
envisioned by ed-tech proponents remains the exception to the rule.”

Know that you have it: Keys to self-driven, self-loving,
self-supporting education

“In
life and learning, sometimes it isn’t what we know, but knowing that we have it that makes the
difference.How can we cultivate an education system that values both how we
feel and behave, as much as what we “know?” Imagine
if you went into school every day and learned, along side your core studies,
how to listen, communicate, and collaborate; how to honor each other; how to
see the best in each other. The possibilities are endless.”

“In the Australian book 'Negotiating the Curriculum, edited by Garth
Boomer, four steps are suggested to
negotiate a study with students applicable for any level of schooling.Essentially it is an inquiry model that emphasizes valuing the 'voice' of
students in the their own learning. It is very much in line with the 'co-
constructivist' teaching philosophy.The four steps outlined below are premised
that the study has not yet been widely accepted by the students. In this
situation the teacher and the learners should ask four questions and together
negotiate the answers. This is essentially about power sharing leaving the
agency for learning in the hands of the students.”

“Engaging students at the year 7 to 10 year age groups seems to be a
growing challenge worldwide as non 'academic' students are finding their
learning boring or irrelevant. The obvious answer would seem to be to ask the
experts themselves - the students!

This is what was done by the innovative
Australian project 'Negotiating the Curriculum' of the early 80s edited by Garth Boomer.”

“On Sunday night TV One a play, 'Ahead of the Class', based on the
true story of how Lady Marie

A scene from the play

Stubbs turned around a notorious school in South
London was shown; this school, no doubt, had more than it's fair share of
suspended students; the previous principal had been murdered by a pupil! The
play faced up to the challenge of ‘turned off’ learners that face too many of our secondary schools. And it also
faced up to a staff who had accepted that the problem lay with the students.”